Despite a precarious financial situation at the beginning of the new year, MTA created a new top position: Director of Accessibility, reporting directly to President Pat Foye. The new role will be filled by Quemuel Arroyo, the former head of accessibility for the New York Department of Transportation.
Former New York City transit president Andy Byford created a similar position in 2018 with the first senior consultant for broad system accessibility and hired Alex Elegudin to report to him. Arroyo, who uses a wheelchair, will be responsible for accessibility throughout the MTA, including Metro-North, Long Island Railroad and Transit.
Arroyo’s work will require him to balance being an advocate for the accessibility community, which often requires nothing less than full accessibility, and a representative of the MTA leadership, with all its financial and physical limitations.
But unlike his predecessor, who supported Byford’s ambitious accessibility plan to ensure that passengers were never more than two subway stops away from a station with working elevators, Arroyo said the MTA needs to think of alternatives, such as ramps .
“I don’t think saying that all stations do not require elevators is controversial,” Arroyo told Gothamist. “Elevators break, that’s the reality, and I know that ramps never break.”
Currently, about 29 percent of the MTA’s 472 metro stations are accessible, or 135 stations (although nine of them are only partially accessible). The MTA hoped to create 70 new stations accessible by 2024, before the pandemic losses forced the agency to suspend its capital plan.
The MTA has looked at ramps in the past, but in Manhattan, there is usually not enough space.
Supporters are not against Arroyo’s plan, but say they will continue to push to create a metro network that is fully accessible to everyone. “This is a civil rights issue and I think people with disabilities deserve the same access to the subway as people without disabilities,” said Jessica Murray, chairman of the New York City Transit public transport accessibility advisory committee and organizer of the the Rise and Resist Elevator Action Group.
It is also a legal issue.
“The MTA is fighting our lawsuits as if it never heard of the American With Disabilities Act. It’s like they never heard of the New York City Human Rights Act,” said Joe Rappaport, Executive Director, Brooklyn Center for Independence of the Disabled (BCID) and a plaintiff in three lawsuits against the MTA for lack of accessibility.
“They have made no real effort to resolve the lawsuits in any way, and are trying to drag that out forever, as far as anyone can tell,” he added. Rappaport said he hoped the nomination of “Q”, the nickname friends and colleagues use for Quemuel Arroyo, would be a sign that the MTA could take another approach. “But until now, when there were other consultants accessible on the New York City Transit, that just didn’t happen,” said Rappaport.
The MTA has a history of being sued for not installing elevators when doing repairs or upgrades at a station. The agency usually says that it is very expensive and not feasible, given the age of the stations and the complicated ownership of the space on the street.
Arroyo confirmed to Gothamist that he would consider the ongoing legal proceedings, but would not comment specifically on the cases or how he would advise MTA lawyers.
The ongoing question of how to reduce the cost of the Access-A-Ride program will also fall on Arroyo to navigate. Before the pandemic, the MTA planned to reduce the popular e-hail program. Now, the program’s future remains on the air. Arroyo says he doesn’t use Access-A-Ride often, but prefers to ride the subway.
The MTA currently has about 20 projects to add elevators in the planning or construction phase.
Arroyo, who has worked at DOT for six years, and has also worked on new accessibility projects at Jay Street Station, said he wants to use the technology to help passengers. For example, finding a way to use Bluetooth technology to inform hearing impaired passengers about service changes at the same time as other passengers.
“New Yorkers with disabilities won a major battle today, making their voices and experiences represented on the table at the highest level of the MTA,” said Arroyo.